Menu boards are widely used at fast food restaurants, for example, to display menu item descriptions and pricing information to a customer. Such menu boards are generally used at drive-thru services and within the interior of the restaurants to inform the customer of the available products, their prices, and may also include photographs of special menu items. Typically, the menu board is mounted as a front panel to an illuminating box containing a light source for back-lighting the menu board from the interior of the box.
In menu boards of the type described above, it is well known in the art to provide menu item descriptions and pricing information on elongated menu strips which are then positioned forwardly of the light source. The menu strips may include transparent characters or numerals which are thus illuminated by the light source while an opaque surface on the menu strip prevents light from being transmitted through other areas of the menu strip. Examples of such menu strip designs may be found in Porter, II et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,604 and Grate, U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,107 wherein the menu strips are positioned on the menu board between adjacent pairs of guide rails fixed to a front or rear surface of the menu board.
It is generally common in the fast food industry to have menu strips with varying heights as different menu items require more or less description of the product. For example, one menu strip may contain the description "Hamburger" while another menu strip may describe a special combination of "Hamburger", "French Fries" and "Drink", with these descriptions being presented in three separate lines on the menu strip to reduce customer confusion in selecting from available products. In the latter example, it will be recognized that the menu strip will have a greater height than in the former example. Moreover, the restaurant may include photographs of special menu items presented on flexible strips of varying heights which are also positioned forwardly of the light source between adjacent pairs of guide rails.
In the past, menu boards were typically customized for a particular application with the spacing between adjacent pairs of guide rails being fixed at the time of installation. Thus, a fast food restaurant could not change the spacing of the guide rails to accommodate menu strips of varying heights without having to purchase a completely new menu board with different guide rail spacing.
One known attempt has been made in Murray, U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,984 to provide a menu board with limited flexibility to accommodate menu strips of varying heights. In this disclosure, a rigid frame is provided with a series of slots along a pair of side members to capture the guide rails in the slots before final assembly of the frame. In this way, variable spacing between adjacent guide rails is provided by varying the spacing between adjacent slots in the frame. Notwithstanding this effort, however, the menu board frame has fixed spacing between adjacent pairs of guide rails after the menu board has been assembled. Thus, once the frame has been assembled, the spacing between adjacent pairs of guide rails cannot be changed to accommodate menu strips or photographs of varying heights.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved menu board which has flexibility to accommodate menu strips or photographs of varying heights.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a menu board which is easy to manufacture and economical to use.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such a menu board which is readily adaptable to changes in menu item descriptions or in product pricing.